On the Fourier Spectra of the Infinite Families of Quadratic APN Functions

It is well known that a quadratic function defined on a finite field of odd degree is almost bent (AB) if and only if it is almost perfect nonlinear (APN). For the even degree case there is no apparent relationship between the values in the Fourier spectrum of a function and the APN property. In this article we compute the Fourier spectrum of the new quadranomial family of APN functions. With this result, all known infinite families of APN functions now have their Fourier spectra and hence their nonlinearities computed.Comment: 12 pages, submitted to Adavances in the Mathematics of communicatio

Generalization of a class of APN binomials to Gold-like functions

In 2008 Budaghyan, Carlet and Leander generalized a known instance of an APN function over the finite field F212 and constructed two new infinite families of APN binomials over the finite field F2n , one for n divisible by 3, and one for n divisible by 4. By relaxing conditions, the family of APN binomials for n divisible by 3 was generalized to a family of differentially 2t -uniform functions in 2012 by Bracken, Tan and Tan; in this sense, the binomials behave in the same way as the Gold functions. In this paper, we show that when relaxing conditions on the APN binomials for n divisible by 4, they also behave in the same way as the Gold function x2s+1 (with s and n not necessarily coprime). As a counterexample, we also show that a family of APN quadrinomials obtained as a generalization of a known APN instance over F210 cannot be generalized to functions with 2t -to-1 derivatives by relaxing conditions in a similar way.acceptedVersio

On weakly APN functions and 4-bit S-Boxes

S-Boxes are important security components of block ciphers. We provide theoretical results on necessary or sufficient criteria for an (invertible) 4-bit S-Box to be weakly APN. Thanks to a classification of 4-bit invertible S-Boxes achieved independently by De Canni\'ere and Leander-Poschmann, we can strengthen our results with a computer-aided proof

Towards a deeper understanding of APN functions and related longstanding problems

This dissertation is dedicated to the properties, construction and analysis of APN and AB functions. Being cryptographically optimal, these functions lack any general structure or patterns, which makes their study very challenging. Despite intense work since at least the early 90's, many important questions and conjectures in the area remain open. We present several new results, many of which are directly related to important longstanding open problems; we resolve some of these problems, and make significant progress towards the resolution of others. More concretely, our research concerns the following open problems: i) the maximum algebraic degree of an APN function, and the Hamming distance between APN functions (open since 1998); ii) the classification of APN and AB functions up to CCZ-equivalence (an ongoing problem since the introduction of APN functions, and one of the main directions of research in the area); iii) the extension of the APN binomial $x^3 + \beta x^{36}$ over $F_{2^{10}}$ into an infinite family (open since 2006); iv) the Walsh spectrum of the Dobbertin function (open since 2001); v) the existence of monomial APN functions CCZ-inequivalent to ones from the known families (open since 2001); vi) the problem of efficiently and reliably testing EA- and CCZ-equivalence (ongoing, and open since the introduction of APN functions). In the course of investigating these problems, we obtain i.a. the following results: 1) a new infinite family of APN quadrinomials (which includes the binomial $x^3 + \beta x^{36}$ over $F_{2^{10}}$); 2) two new invariants, one under EA-equivalence, and one under CCZ-equivalence; 3) an efficient and easily parallelizable algorithm for computationally testing EA-equivalence; 4) an efficiently computable lower bound on the Hamming distance between a given APN function and any other APN function; 5) a classification of all quadratic APN polynomials with binary coefficients over $F_{2^n}$ for $n \le 9$; 6) a construction allowing the CCZ-equivalence class of one monomial APN function to be obtained from that of another; 7) a conjecture giving the exact form of the Walsh spectrum of the Dobbertin power functions; 8) a generalization of an infinite family of APN functions to a family of functions with a two-valued differential spectrum, and an example showing that this Gold-like behavior does not occur for infinite families of quadratic APN functions in general; 9) a new class of functions (the so-called partially APN functions) defined by relaxing the definition of the APN property, and several constructions and non-existence results related to them.Doktorgradsavhandlin

Triplicate functions

We define the class of triplicate functions as a generalization of 3-to-1 functions over $\mathbb {F}_{2^{n}}$ for even values of n. We investigate the properties and behavior of triplicate functions, and of 3-to-1 among triplicate functions, with particular attention to the conditions under which such functions can be APN. We compute the exact number of distinct differential sets of power APN functions and quadratic 3-to-1 functions; we show that, in this sense, quadratic 3-to-1 functions are a generalization of quadratic power APN functions for even dimensions, in the same way that quadratic APN permutations are generalizations of quadratic power APN functions for odd dimensions. We show that quadratic 3-to-1 APN functions cannot be CCZ-equivalent to permutations in the case of doubly-even dimensions. We compute a lower bound on the Hamming distance between any two quadratic 3-to-1 APN functions, and give an upper bound on the number of such functions over $\mathbb {F}_{2^{n}}$ for any even n. We survey all known infinite families of APN functions with respect to the presence of 3-to-1 functions among them, and conclude that for even n almost all of the known infinite families contain functions that are quadratic 3-to-1 or are EA-equivalent to quadratic 3-to-1 functions. We also give a simpler univariate representation in the case of singly-even dimensions of the family recently introduced by Göloglu than the ones currently available in the literature. We conduct a computational search for quadratic 3-to-1 functions in even dimensions n ≤ 12. We find six new APN instances for n = 10, and the first sporadic APN instance for n = 12 since 2006. We provide a list of all known 3-to-1 APN functions for n ≤ 12.publishedVersio

New links between nonlinearity and differential uniformity

International audienceThis paper establishes some new links between the nonlinearity and differential uniformity of some large classes of functions, such as power functions, differentially two-valued functions and quadratic functions. We obtain a lower bound for the nonlinearity of general differential uniform power permutations, an upper bound for general differentially two-valued functions, together with some important results for quadratic functions. In particular, we show that the quadratic differentially 4-uniform permutations should be two-valued and possess the best known nonlinearity

New links between nonlinearity and differential uniformity

International audienceIn this paper some new links between the nonlinearity and differential uniformity of some large classes of functions are established. Differentially two-valued functions and quadratic functions are mainly treated. A lower bound for the nonlinearity of monomial δ-uniform permutations is obtained, for any δ, as well as an upper bound for differentially two-valued functions. Concerning quadratic functions, significant relations between nonlinearity and differential uniformity are exhibited. In particular, we show that the quadratic differentially 4-uniform permutations should be differentially two-valued and possess the best known nonlinearity

Toeplitz operators of finite interval type and the table method

We solve a Riemann-Hilbert problem with almost periodic coefficient G, associated to a Toeplitz operator T-G in a class which is closely connected to finite interval convolution equations, based on a generalization of the so-called table method. The explicit determination of solutions to that problem allows one to establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the invertibility of the corresponding Toeplitz operator, and to determine an appropriate factorization of G, providing explicit formulas for the inverse of T-G. Some unexpected properties of the Fourier spectrum of the solutions are revealed which are not apparent through other approaches to the same probleminfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio